Piscataway is facing a major crisis involving drug abuse. Because of this crisis, the community is initiating a study to examine methodology in trained units of drug abuse and a referral service to deal with drug abuse. The community does feel that the teenager should be made conscious of a full range of society's problems but dispensing of information - didactic instruction and enforcement does not seem to constitute drug abuse prevention, The question of whether the schools can do anything to prevent drug abuse is being asked constantly. If the answer was easy, we would have been successful; but have we possibly stimulated drug abuse? Teachers and others have failed to communicate effective with a life style the abuser seeks. Above all, schools chronically fail to consider anything except cognitive instruction. A few schools are working in the affective domain and attempt to deal with student concerns. Perhaps the ideal process for drug prevention would be to assume that the culture of the school should provide an alternative to the drug culture which would be acceptable to the students. This would mean a fundamental institutional change. Perhaps, it is too much to expect of drug education, but the opportunity does exist for change. The middle school housing the adolescent provides a turning point: the community sees the forces as clear indicators for direction into a constructive movement towards adulthood. Perception of self, family and peers is critical and can be either perceived negatively or positively. Recent research does give evidence that the adolescent's perception of his family may be different than that of his family. Both perceptions can be accurate, but not necessarily coincide. If this knowledge could be effectively blended together, change could result in their behavior.